Recent article: Irwandi Yusuf was a separatist rebel until the
Tsunami hit in December 2004, taking 170,000 lives in Indonesia's Aceh ("Achay")
province, and
shocking the two sides into seeking peace. Mr. Irwandi, now the elected
governor of Aceh, is still a rebel in that he is fighting corruption, something not many
politicians in Indonesia (or anywhere else) bother to do. He is unpretentious,
drives his own car, and gets along well with regular folks.Click here for article.

Recent article:India: Thousands of farmers commit suicide each year as
crops fail and debts close in -- over
17,000 in 2003, the last year for which records are available. Government farm
aid has stopped for most farmers, while American and European crops, enjoying
tens of billions of dollars a year in home-based subsidies, undercut prices. ($18 billion
U.S. alone.) Biotech
advances raise costs of seed and fertilizer, which farmers cannot reject in
favor of old methods if they are to compete, but the higher costs lead to more
debt and financial ruin when a crop fails. Article, click here.

Democracy and Free Enterprise in the Third World

During the Cold War the third world consisted
of dictatorships controlled either by the Soviets or the U.S. and Europe. With
the end of the Cold War democracy is an option in Africa, Latin America and
Asia. (Click here for this sites discussion of the
Cold War.) But democracy is not happening, not even in places that we call
democracies, like India, Egypt, and Mexico, because the rich and international
corporations have a lock on the system in terms of what businesses succeed as
well as what lawmakers decide, so there is not free enterprise and the economy
cannot thrive. The rich avoid taxes and the middle class, taxed to the hilt and
crushed by the racketeering rich, cannot emerge. Corruption rules at all levels,
the police are outright criminals as well as corrupt. There usually not freedom of speech
ans press (India and Pakistan are among exceptions, in Mexico the government
permits it but not the narcotrafficantes) and courageous politicians and activists
and journalists are routinely
killed by those in power. Elections, even though the elections may sometimes be fair and
genuinely competitive,
do not change this nightmare, and do not constitute democracy except in a very
narrow, meaningless way. In these elections different parties compete for votes
to run a dictatorship of the rich and military.

And all the while debt owed to rich countries and
the World Bank, who issue loans that go down the toilet of corruption and have
rarely helped poor and working people, uses up large portions of national
resources in payments on that debt. Corporate business has moved in to profit
off cheap labor, in league with the local elite. The World Bank is now
imposing conditions to stem corruption, as with the oil line in Chad, but this
is a recent development, and it is the opposite of their general history -- not
to say they haven't done some good things along the way. The World Bank
used to say they had no political motivations in giving out loans, but that has
always been a pure lie. Giving money to corrupt governments to, for instance,
build roads that serve the rich plantation owners, is a political event.

Below are articles about people who are fighting to
make democracy happen
around the world. We also want to also remember people like and Colosio in
Mexico, Djindjic in Serbia, Chico Mendez in Brazil and others who have been
assassinated because they fought for political justice.

Democracy in the world: advocates taking
on the corrupt establishments.

Below: Click on footprint to go to article

Digna Ochoa was killed for her work advancing just
causes in Mexico. Ex-president Fox, showing clearly that he had no interest
in criminal justice, went along with the absurd claim of the courts that Ochoa
committed suicide.

Motivated Nigerian bureaucrat Dorothy Akunyili takes on
manufacturers of fake pharmaceutical drugs, at the risk of her life. She is credited with
bringing down the percentage of counterfeit drugs from 70% to 35% in three
years.

Indian activist Sayeed Hameed seeks to give a voice to
groups representing workers and the poor before the Planning Commission,
which now consults with big business interests. She has advocated for peace
with Pakistan, for the rights of Muslims in India and women's rights.

More articles: Click on name in blue for article

Lahib Naoman, Iraq....Excerpt:
...(article from June '03)..... Ms. Naoman's journey to this dusty room on a quiet street of tidy homes in
Baghdad began more than 20 years ago with her decision to practice law in a
country devoid of justice. She then chose to defend a man who faced the harshest
of punishments for allegedly committing the pettiest of crimes, stealing a
videocassette recorder belonging to Saddam Hussein's son Uday. When silence and submission were the currency of Iraqi life, Ms. Naoman dared
to speak her mind. For her persistence, Ms. Naoman, now 48, spent 17 years in
and out of Baghdad's prisons and psychiatric hospitals.

Ngugi wa Thiongo, Kenya............
Excerpt: ...... On Wednesday night, while Mr. Ngugi was resting in a Nairobi
apartment between speaking engagements, four robbers barged in and
brutalized him, his wife and a friend. The attackers raped his wife and
stole cash and jewelry as well as Mr. Ngugi's laptop computer. One of the
intruders burned Mr. Ngugi's face repeatedly with a cigarette. So brazen was
the attack, some Kenyans have speculated it might have been carried out by
former enemies.

Georgi Satarov, Russia ....Excerpt:....Not long after Boris N. Yeltsin chose him as an adviser, Georgi A. Satarov
decided to conduct an experiment. He invited top officials from Russia's police
force, its Federal Security Service, and prosecutor's office to the Kremlin.
Then he proposed that the officials plant bribe-givers in their ranks. The idea was to identify sources of corruption in government. It was based on
the F.B.I's Abscam campaign of the 1970's that entrapped members of Congress who
took bribes from agents posing as Arab businessmen. The Russian officials ''didn't like it at all,'' said Mr. Satarov, his eyes
creasing with a smile. ''From the tone of their voices and the expression on
their faces, you could tell they didn't want to do it.''

Irina Khakamada Russia ......Excerpt:
......."First, this is a society based on lies,'' she said when she announced her
candidacy last month. ''Second, it is a society in which democracy is no more
than a formal procedure. Third, it is a society that is based on total secrecy.
And most importantly -- and something that everyone is already aware of -- it is
a society based on fear.'' ..........Mr. Putin has made lap dogs out of the courts, the Parliament and the
broadcast media, she said in the interview. In Russia today, ''Everything
depends on his mood.''

Judge Kudeshinka, Russia
......Excerpt: ............ As a judge, she spent the 1980s in Siberia where she once
sentenced a woman to five years in jail for illegally selling carpets. Four
years ago, Ms. Kudeshkina, who is married to a former KGB official, landed a plum
promotion to the Moscow city court system. ......But last year, Ms. Kudeshinka was yanked off a high-profile
case after refusing to follow orders from her boss that she says would have
given government prosecutors an unfair advantage. When she complained about the
incident -- and spoke openly about it during a controversial run for political
office -- Ms. Kudeshkina was fired.

Liu Di, China......Exerpt: ...........She wrote an
[online] essay defending a man jailed because of political postings on
his Web site. She defended another intellectual singled out by the government
for organizing a reading association and for posting political essays online.
She wrote a critical attack on an advocate of nationalism and began dabbling in
satire and parody at the government's expense. In one posting, she called for the organization of a new political party in
which anyone could join and everyone could be chairman. She said it was a spoof.
But by September 2002, college administrators issued a warning. ''They said the
postings I published on the Web went too far,'' she said. ''Some of the stuff I
thought was written in a joking manner. But they thought it was too far.''
.......Terrified, she said, she scaled back on her online writing. But two months
later, administrators ordered her to the campus police station, where officers
took her to a Beijing prison. She was put in a cell with three other women,
including a convicted murderer. Even today, she says she does not know which of
her essays led to her arrest.

Pan Yue, China.....Excerpt............If he is blunt in identifying the problems, he sounds almost
radical in offering a solution: China must change the way it is developing
to prevent an environmental crisis and a depletion of natural resources.
Environmental protection must become a national priority. And, for good
measure, public participation must be encouraged -- the sort of language
that in China usually means more democracy.

Guo Guoting, China......Excerpt.......For his efforts to defend a friend and principle, Mr. Guo has recently been
driven from the law, deprived of a livelihood after most of his paying clientele
was scared away, but not before adding his name to a long and growing roll of
accidental activists, people driven to do something in their own immediate
spheres by the intolerable injustices they encounter in everyday life. One of those is the dispossession of the powerless, which has long been the
dirty little secret behind much of China's extraordinary urban development.
Local authorities have been able to condemn buildings and clear land without so
much as a hearing, and distribute the land to developers in murky, no-bid
sweetheart deals. In Shanghai, a fantasyland of skyscrapers today in a city where tall
buildings scarcely existed only 15 years ago, these stories have a particularly
breathtaking quality to them. In some instances, residents of old properties in
choice areas of the city have been summoned to the police station only to return
and find their houses demolished.